If she went down to the shore with Robin she usually met with a
querulous, and sometimes tearful, reception on her return, and though
she steadily refused to admit that there was any reason on Vera's part
for assuming this attitude, it influenced her none the less. Moreover,
Vera could be genuinely pathetic upon occasion, and there was no
disputing the fact that she stood in need of care--such care as only a
woman could give.
"I don't want a nurse," she would say plaintively. "I only want
companionship and sympathy. Motoring is my only consolation, and I can't
go motoring alone."
And then the squire would draw her aside and beg her to bear with Vera's
whims as far as possible since loneliness depressed her and she was the
only person he knew whose company did not either tire her out or irritate
her beyond endurance. It was not an easy position, but Juliet filled it
to the best of her ability and with no small self-sacrifice.
Yet in a sense it made her life the simpler, for she was still at that
difficult stage when it is easier to stand still than to go forward. She
saw Green when he came to the house, but they had not been alone together
since the morning on the shore when her love had betrayed her.
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